The youth exchange “Entrepreneurship as a tool for social integration” took place in Pompei, Italy at the end of September 2020. Young people with the age between 18 to 25 from Italy, Spain, United Kingdom and Poland were involved in the exchange. In the following article we are happy to tell you more about the project and also present some of its results!
The main objectives of the project were to inform the participants about the refugee situation in Europe, to encourage the sense of tolerance, solidarity and acceptance towards migrants and refugees, to stimulate the participants to discover social entrepreneurship in order to include young migrants and refugees in their local societies and to promote mutual understanding and dialogue between the participants’ different nationalities. These objectives offered them the opportunity to implement ideas and projects in their own country and promote social entrepreneurship.
Activities were based on non-formal education in order to involve more participants in the topic. Non-formal education is a methodology through various tools such as role-playing games, theater, simulations, team building, confidence building, creative presentations, discussions, etc. and these are the kind of workshops we did. Participants discovered the national realities related to migration situation and refugee integration through previously prepared materials and creative presentations, which gave them a more clear picture of the situation on european level. Through Forum Theater methodology, the participants were encouraged to self-awareness of youth about their own role in solving social issues. Through World Cafè methodology, participants explored the concept of social entrepreneurship and important terminology related to it. We used the Human Library method by involving young entrepreneurs to share their experience with participants and inspire them to be active and become changemakers themselves. Many of the activities were also based on active involvement which means that the participants were the ones implementing some of the activities. In that way they got to practise their leadership-, creative- and structural skills.
The participants created many outcomes during the week such as a video, interview, logo, brochure and a website to share their amazing experience in Italy with all of you!
Here is the newspaper the participants created:
Here is the interview:
We also made a final video of the week to share with all of you!
Last, but not least, the participants did offline campaigns as for example presentations in local schools to share what they learnt during the Youth Exchange in Italy. They spread a message of solidarity, tolerance and acceptance and for always want to make the world a better place!
Active Youth for Europe 